So..... I've been playing PT (AP) for the last month. Got him into 242/236 and he's tier 3 now.

I decided to goof off today and play pyro pt. Fair dmg, no problem there.. where the topic comes in, not only do PTs in general not have a H2F, pyros don't even have a passive def. No H2F, no passive defence, abyssal "kolto missile" heal. the closest thing to a "passive def" they have is a tempt 60% def during kolto overloads actual heal..... not during the huge period between you pressing it and it healing you, no, just during the actual heal.

Does bioware hate PTs?

even with the dps buff it's quite difficult.

But the spec is fun, i played it a lot in 5.0. place your dot, do your rotation and after immolate, a firepunch to root + just run away under hydraulic + rail shot/ incendiary missile/ blaster shot while moving and go to the nearest heal node

and repeat.

in arenas with no heal nodes, just kite the best you can to help your team.

I do play time to time my Pyro PT in pvp, and I'm having a lot of fun most of the time. Dot spreading is pretty easy/fun, and the buff it got with 5.3 makes the damage interesting. The problem is when you have to defend a node for a decent period of time and/or when you're getting focused hard.

It definitely needs some DCD love to make it a strong asset in regs.

I do play time to time my Pyro PT in pvp, and I'm having a lot of fun most of the time. Dot spreading is pretty easy/fun, and the buff it got with 5.3 makes the damage interesting. The problem is when you have to defend a node for a decent period of time and/or when you're getting focused hard.

 

It definitely needs some DCD love to make it a strong asset in regs.

I was thinking that too. its a shame the class design of swtor is to give burst the defences, then give DoT handy little effects.

though not having a cc is rough on pt, you can kinda compensate with cyber grenades (the only adv class I dont feel ashamed to use cyber grenades)

PT dps are in that weird spot where they're actually pretty decent in group ranked --AP is, anyway-- where a dedicated tank and healer can keep them alive long enough for their low CD shield and kolto (for AP and pyro, respectively) to actually have an impact. Outside of this scenario though those "X cooldown is reduced by Y every time attacked" passives are quite worthless (4 dps solo ranked games are the best example of this). They get ruined by snipers pretty hard but I think that is clearly at least as much a result of how overpowered snipers are currently as it is how bad PTs are, seeing as how snipers crap on almost everything at the moment. If you're not running into teams running the overpowered meta classes PTs are pretty OK it seems to me.

In my opinion the only change I would like to see is that their kolto should heal them very very fast, such that it's difficult (rather than very easy) to burst them through it. This would make them less total garbage in the scenarios where they get farmed currently without risking making them far too strong with a tank and healer backing them up (or making the tank spec too good). Kolto has a 3 minute cooldown, it shouldn't require a guard to function.

If we don't want classes to be busted if they have a proper team comp around them we should expect some classes to be easy pickings in some scenarios.

PT dps are in that weird spot where they're actually pretty decent in group ranked --AP is, anyway-- where a dedicated tank and healer can keep them alive long enough for their low CD shield and kolto (for AP and pyro, respectively) to actually have an impact. Outside of this scenario though those "X cooldown is reduced by Y every time attacked" passives are quite worthless (4 dps solo ranked games are the best example of this). They get ruined by snipers pretty hard but I think that is clearly at least as much a result of how overpowered snipers are currently as it is how bad PTs are, seeing as how snipers crap on almost everything at the moment. If you're not running into teams running the overpowered meta classes PTs are pretty OK it seems to me.

 

In my opinion the only change I would like to see is that their kolto should heal them very very fast, such that it's difficult (rather than very easy) to burst them through it. This would make them less total garbage in the scenarios where they get farmed currently without risking making them far too strong with a tank and healer backing them up (or making the tank spec too good). Kolto has a 3 minute cooldown, it shouldn't require a guard to function.

 

If we don't want classes to be busted if they have a proper team comp around them we should expect some classes to be easy pickings in some scenarios.

Exactly. Kolto must be reworked in PT dps to a valid formula that is not OP.

Apart form that, having kolto as the sole dcd for the spec while Mercs have 5-6 + healing is bad design.

PT dps are in that weird spot where they're actually pretty decent in group ranked --AP is, anyway-- where a dedicated tank and healer can keep them alive long enough for their low CD shield and kolto (for AP and pyro, respectively) to actually have an impact. Outside of this scenario though those "X cooldown is reduced by Y every time attacked" passives are quite worthless (4 dps solo ranked games are the best example of this). They get ruined by snipers pretty hard but I think that is clearly at least as much a result of how overpowered snipers are currently as it is how bad PTs are, seeing as how snipers crap on almost everything at the moment. If you're not running into teams running the overpowered meta classes PTs are pretty OK it seems to me.

 

In my opinion the only change I would like to see is that their kolto should heal them very very fast, such that it's difficult (rather than very easy) to burst them through it. This would make them less total garbage in the scenarios where they get farmed currently without risking making them far too strong with a tank and healer backing them up (or making the tank spec too good). Kolto has a 3 minute cooldown, it shouldn't require a guard to function.

 

If we don't want classes to be busted if they have a proper team comp around them we should expect some classes to be easy pickings in some scenarios.

While AP is not terrible in a trinity format, it does not hold a candle to snipers, mara or sins, neither in damage or survivability. Only thing PT is good at is utility (mainly hard CC). Pyro is significantly worse. It lacks the passive survivability and low shield CD that AP have. And has highly dysfunctional rotation.

While AP is not terrible in a trinity format, it does not hold a candle to snipers, mara or sins, neither in damage or survivability. Only thing PT is good at is utility (mainly hard CC). Pyro is significantly worse. It lacks the passive survivability and low shield CD that AP have. And has highly dysfunctional rotation.

I really think all AP needs is nerfs to the broken classes (everything needs that part) and a functioning kolto. Pyro...is another matter entirely. It seems to me that as long as its DCDs are just a faster kolto and a full 2 minute CD energy shield it will probably suck in PVP. Should be redesigned.

I don't disagree about maras and snipers but that state of affairs is at least as much about those classes being too strong as it is anything else. Being worse than maras and snipers isn't really a valid argument for getting a buff as it applies to basically everything. And I think saying they don't hold a candle to assassins and are only good at utility is a pretty big exaggeration. In my book, PTs are, at most, a little bit under assassins and you say they're only good at utility as if utility isn't a *really big deal.* Carbonize is still an absurdly good ability in arenas, especially if you have 2 of them to chain together.

 

I really think all AP needs is nerfs to the broken classes (everything needs that part) and a functioning kolto. Pyro...is another matter entirely. It seems to me that as long as its DCDs are just a faster kolto and a full 2 minute CD energy shield it will probably suck in PVP. Should be redesigned.

On the contrary, I think PT utility is the strongest of all disciplines in arenas, due to carbonize + 1 sec on it and hard CC. And IMO, utility is equal to damage when evaluating a class (my original post did not give utility enough credit!).

My main is AP PT, but since 5.0 I have been playing carnage. Carnage is surely over performing, but man, it makes AP look like a clown. I think if we use Deception as our base line for burst specs, we will have much better balance. Right now snipers and mara trivialize everything and merc trolls everyone in less competitive game play (especially if there are no healers).